Playing with Fire,or the Stuffing of Dead Animals: Freire,Dewey, and the Dilemma of Social Studies Reform

In his proposal for a social studies both more critical and more participatory, Neumann's (2008) politically adaptive strategy of invoking standards for critical thinking poses troubling concerns for democratic-minded educators familiar with the trajectory of reforms. Neumann's outright dismissal of critical pedagogy ironically underscores how the political nature of educational knowledge itself mitigates the possibility of a more critical orientation. A reexamination of the Dewey-Lippmann debates points to the pivotal roles of dissent, dialogue and critical agency in democracy, and to the conclusion that, despite recent criticisms, critical pedagogy represented by Freire best meets Neumann's goal of a more “holistic approach to democratic health” (332).